Methods and Systems for Generating Depth Profiles with Improved Optical Resolution

1. A method for generating a depth profile of a tissue of a subject, comprising: (a) using an optical probe, comprising one or more focusing units, to transmit an excitation light beam from a light source to a surface of said tissue, which pulses of said excitation light beam, upon contacting said tissue, yield one or more signals; (b) detecting, via said optical probe, at least a subset of said one or more signals, wherein a point spread function of said subset of said one or more signals is sufficiently small to enable a resolution of less than 200 microns; and (c) using one or more computer processors programmed to process said at least said subset of said one or more signals detected in (b) to generate said depth profile of said tissue, wherein said one or more focusing units simultaneously adjust a depth and a position of a focal point of said excitation light beam along a slanted path forming a slanted plane positioned along a direction angled with respect to an optical axis of said optical probe.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein (b) further comprises simultaneously detecting a plurality of subsets of said one or more signals.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising processing said plurality of subsets of said one or more signals to generate a plurality of depth profiles, wherein said plurality of depth profiles correspond to a probe position at a time of detecting said one or more signals.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said plurality of depth profiles corresponds to a same scanning path.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising assigning a least one distinct color for each of said plurality of depth profiles.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising combining at least a subset of data from said plurality of depth profiles to form a composite depth profile.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising displaying, on a display screen, a composite image derived from said composite depth profile, wherein said composite image is a polychromatic image.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said depth profile comprises a plurality of layers created from a plurality of subsets of images collected from a same location and time, wherein of said plurality of layers comprise data that identifies different characteristics than those of other layers.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said depth profiles comprises a plurality of sub-set depth profiles, wherein said plurality of sub-set depth profiles comprise optical data from processed one or more signals.

10. The method of claim 3, wherein said plurality of depth profiles comprises a first depth profile and a second depth profile, and wherein said first depth profile comprises data processed from a signal that is different from data generated from a signal comprised in said second depth profile.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said first depth and said second depth profile comprise at least one processed one or more signals independently selected from the group consisting of a second harmonic generation (SHG) signal, a multi photon fluorescence signal, and a reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) signal.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said tissue comprises in vivo tissue.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said detecting is performed in a presence of ambient light.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said depth profile has a resolution of at least 0.8 micrometers.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying a projected cross section image of said tissue generated at least in part from said depth profile, further comprising displaying a composite of a plurality of layers of images, wherein each of said plurality of layers is generated by a corresponding depth profile of a plurality of depth profiles.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein said one or more focusing units comprises an afocal lens arrangement comprising a fixed lens and a mobile lens.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein said optical probe comprises an objective lens and said objective lens is stationary with respect to said tissue or in contact with said tissue.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein said optical probe maintains a constant numerical aperture while said one or more focusing units adjust a depth of said focal point.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein an angle between said slanted plane and said optical axis is between 10 degrees and 80 degrees.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein a point spread function of said subset of one or more signals is sufficiently small to enable a resolution of less than 10 microns.